Love Overflowing

The house is quiet and I’m at the kitchen table folding clothes. It’s been a long time since I’ve folded my son’s garments. Lay out, fold and roll, the way his dad showed me.

It’s mundane, but in the stillness, it feels sacred. Something I’m grateful to do. I feel teary writing about it and grateful God gave me the presence to notice it.

Memories collide in my head. I’m in Oklahoma, where I raised my children. We lived here in their early years. I’ve had moments like this the entire week. 

Snuggling Georgia — just 12 days from heaven — her eyes focused on my face for a few moments. She felt familiar. 

A little boy, opening the back door where I sat with his “Baby Sister Georgia,” delighted to show off a grasshopper in his bug catcher. 

Throwing the wiffle ball to him as he swung and missed and swung and hit. He picking up the ball with his left hand and chucking it right back to me. Both of us laughing when the ball hit the tree before dropping at my feet. Building a house with magnetic blocks. 

It took me back to another sacred time.

A little girl with curly blonde hair, laughing, telling stories, reading books and running, head bent over, full speed. Slipping a princess dress over her head and hearing her princess shoes clomp on the pavement. 

A mama healing and working and loving through all hours of the day and night. The sacrifices are tiny and large, endless and ongoing. Her heart is in it.

A daddy getting up early to work, happy to fund little lives and sacrifice day after day. As soon as he’s home, he’s hands-on. Tossing a child, drawing the bath, chasing his buddy. His heart is in it, too. 

It all adds up to a beautiful masterpiece: brush stroke after brush stroke. The biggest act of human creativity. Thank you, Lord, for the chance to be both participant and observer of the greatest show this side of heaven. 

All my love, bursting and overflowing my heart onto the red Oklahoma dirt.